Torchwood: Something in the Water

No need, - drawled a voice from the lakeside. Jack was getting slowly to his feet, his face and coat soaked with muddy water and streaked with his own blood. He walked slowly across to the SOCO and smiled:

- No harm done.

• What? - Kilshaw looked down at the deep red strain spreading across Jack's shirt.
• He missed, - said Jack simply.

  The policeman frowned

  - What?

• Cap'n Jack Harkness, - said Jack warmly. He shook the SOCO's hand and flashed him another bright smile:

  - Like I said, no harm done. Get your men together and go, Sergeant. We'll handle things from here.

• He missed? - repeated Kilshaw, still staring at the blood seeping through Jack's blue shirt.
• Yeah. In fact, I'd reprimand him if I were you. Looks like he need a bit more practice on the shooting range, wouldn't you say?

Jack clicked his fingers.

- And then it says "water hag",right?

• Twice so far,as we can tell. Or something very like it.

  Jack leant against Toshiko's workstation with a frown, lips pursed, considering.

  - Maybe, he mistook Gwen for some old hag - Owen suggested. When Gwen narrowed her eyes at him, he added:

  - No, seriously... the first thing he does when he wakes up after forty years dead is roll off the autopsy table and see Gwen. Or, at least, a blurred version of Gwen. He certainly wouldn't have been able to see her clearly. But maybe he could tell she was a woman - small, long hair. That would be enough.

  - But a hag? - Gwen repeated - Thanks very much.

• We don't know what was the last thing he saw before he died is, do we? - Owen said - Maybe it was some evil old witch with a knife.
• Thanks.

Owen found Jack on the phone to the UN in Geneva.

- Torchwood, - Jack was saying, - Yes. T-O-R-C-H-W...look, who is this? I'm calling on a priority line, dammit, I don't need to spell anything out. I was promised a full report on the Helsinki Wrap. Yes, I know that was a UNIT operation. Torchwood copied in on everything UNIT does.

He listened for a few seconds, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

- Captain Jack Harkness. Harkness. H-A-R-K... oh, can it.

He threw the phone onto his desk in exasperation and run his fingers through his hair.

- What is it with these guys? Give them a desk and a phone and they think they control the world.

• Some of them do, don't they?
• Over my dead body. And I mean that. It's bad enough dealing with the Hoklara Corp lawyers and their ex-dimension writs, without all that United Nations red tape.

Gwen rested her chin in one hand.

- Rhys once told me that, from the moment we're born, we're all on a collision course with death.

• If that's philosophy then I'll stick with Hawking.
• I think he read it somewhere in the novel. That's why he's in haulage, not philosophy. But it's true, though, when you think about it. We're all going to die some day.
• Well, all of us except Captain Jack Harkness, it seemes.

  Gwen nodded slowly.

  - The exception that proves the rule.

  Toshiko thought about it for a while.

  - I suppose it does mean that one day, for the rest of us, we really will breathe our last breath. Say our last word. Think our last thought...

• The final act.
• You sort of stop thinking about in our line of work, - Toshiko said, - We've each faced "the final act" so many times, it's just becomes...
• Part of the routine?
• ... an occupational hazard.

- What about the press? - asked Jack - They'll be all over this place soon.

• She's on it. She says the press and TV are the easiest to sort out, because brutal murders in local parks are just what they like to hear about and they'll believe anything.

  Gwen suppressed a shiver at the thought of Torchwood cover-up expert going through the routine of disguising their involvement and "normalising" the incident. It was something Gwen almost took for granted now. Almost. Just like the violent, terrible deaths she had witnessed with incredible regularity since joining Torchwood. She had made a promise to herself, early on and with Jack's encouragement, that she would never become desensitised to it. And yet she was, staring dispassionately at the eviscerated body at their feet with the same sort of cool professional detachment that she had seen displayed by the other, experienced members of Torchwood when she first joined the team.

...- There are some references in literature and folklore down through the ages, though, and famously there was a giant water hag in "Beowulf". She was Grendel's mother, and she used to live under a black lake and drag people down to their deaths with hooked talons.

- I think I went out with her once - said Owen.

• Which is probably why Beowulf killed her with his magic sword - Gwen said - Put the poor woman out of her misery.
• Ho, ho, ho.
• There was another well-known water hag in Cheshire called Jenny Greenteeth - Gwen continued. - She used to lurk in ditches and drags unwary travelers down to her underwater den.
• Jenny Greenteeth? - repeated Owen - Yep, definitely went out with her.